rucksacking

Around the Web

Looking for backpacking web logs this morning, and came across this great Yosemite blog. Makes me long for California. Also came across Toolpicks, a site that occasionally features handy backpacking items, like this lightweight fishing set-up, which would be perfect on the John Muir trail.

From Trafalgar Square to Cape Town: Thru-hiking Europe and Africa

Rucksackers everywhere should salute the Australian husband and wife team of Gary and Paula Constant. On the 1^st of August, 2004, they left London from Trafalgar square to walk to Cape Town in South Africa -- a distance of over 10,500 miles. The walk will run in three stages: from London to Morocco, Morocco to Sudan, and Sudan to Cape Town. They're currently in Portugal, which sounds nice. The trip must have taken incredible palnning skills, but we were brough up short by this line on their site: "After a great deal of thought, it has been agreed the weight that can be comfortably carried on a daily basis by each person should not exceed 30kilos, and ideally would be closer to 20. Including food." (Note to Americans: that's 44 to 66 pounds)(Note to the Constants: you could go a lot lighter than that! Please, get rid of that needlessly heavy Coleman tent!)

Constanttrek Home [Constanttrek.com]
Constanttrek Blog [constanttrek.typepad.com]

Thru-hiker Rolls

As Winter makes its way towards Spring, hundreds of hopeful hikers are making their ways onto the nation's long-distance trails. But who, we wonder, are these interpid souls? Never fear, hiker rolls are here! See the ones from Whiteblaze or Hiker Directory, the many entries at Trailjournals, or scan the starting date calendar at Trailplace (registration required).

Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2005 Madness!

The good folks over at BackpackingLight.com have basically blogged this year's winter Outdoor Retailers convention in Brighton, UT, and posted an index here. There are even short, free descriptions for non-members. If we had to choose, we'd say we're most excited about this, but that's because A) we love Smartwool, and B) we're not so into winter backpacking, so a lot of these products fail to get our juices going.

A Good Brolly

Of the many innovations in technique ushered in by Ray Jardine's classic book, one of my favorites is the use of an umbrella. Equally useful in rain and hot sun, a brolly adds a sort of gentleman-of-leisure air to the whole endeavor of backpacking. GoLite has been offering their Dome umbrella for a couple of years, and I use one quite happily, but I wondered if there were any other contenders out there. As it turns out, Mont Bell offers its own trekking umbrella. The compact size is a big draw, but I wonder how they hold up in the wind [They do, as windy days in northern Germany have proved - ed., 1.29.05]. I also read a posting over on BackpackingGearTest raving about the many wonderful facets of the Birdiepal (catalog), a line of German-made golf umbrellas.

And So It Begins

The 2004 AT season has begun. Last year 1,750 people started, and 352 made it all the way to Katahdin; through February 20, 40 people have already started. Trailjournals.com, a site whose name I think speaks for itself, already has journals from some of this year's hikers. You can read them here.

Oh the joy of it all

If, for some reason, you have a lot of time on your hands to spend looking at gear online, gearfinder is for you. Though it could an Orbitz-type interface for comparisons, it has a respectably large database of products, most of which, sadly, are unneccesarily bulky and expensive.